Gone Fishing…

I hope that your summer is going well! We have been doing a lot of swimming; and Alex has been doing horse riding, which she loves. Victory just received a clean bill of health from our vet, thank goodness, per her annual exam! We have been hitting our very low-key summer checklist! And, how has this happened, already — Alex recently started to take Victory for potty, with supervision, of course! Alex is getting so independent these days, and I cannot believe she is three already! I feel like the days are going by way too quickly.

I am taking a break from the blog for a couple weeks to go on vacation; soak up our days together; rejuvenate; and to catch up on some photo editing, as it has been so busy lately, that it has fallen to the wayside. I want to thank you, as always, for being here. Whether you are a recent reader or have been following the blog for awhile, I am honored you take time to read the blog.  I am truly grateful. 

Meanwhile, if you are in a blog-reading mood, you are warmly invited to visit the archives — the links are shown below.

Dog Related posts

Dog Rescue posts

‘Dog-Centric’ Artists Interviews

For Artists posts

Photography posts

Personal posts

Victory Related posts

Alex Related posts

Happy Summer!

Making Your Child and Dog Feel Noticed and Loved

Toni Morrison’s words are so accurate that one sentence can bring you to your knees or set you free. Her words have really resonated with me.

Toni Morrison was on Oprah talking about her book, The Bluest Eye. Oprah said, “Toni says a beautiful thing about the messages that we get about who we are when a child first walks into a room,” and she asked her to talk about it.

Toni Morrison explained that it’s interesting to watch what happens when a child walks into a room. She asked, “Does your face light up?”

She explained, “When my children used to walk in the room when they were little, I looked at them to see if they had buckled their trousers or if their hair was combed or if their socks were up. You think your affection and your deep love is on display because you’re caring for them. It’s not. When they see you, they see the critical face. What’s wrong now?”

Her advice was simple, but so powerful. She said:

“Let your face speak what’s in your heart. When they walk in the room my face says I’m glad to see them. It’s just as small as that, you see?” I think of this advice every day, and it has become a practice. I want to light up. And, I never would have thought about it had it not been for the wisdom of Toni Morrison. And, importantly, I also use this practice our older daughter, our fur girl, Victory, who is very keenly aware of non-verbal body language, and it works really well with her, too!

What about you? Have you ever thought about this? It’s one of those little things that feels really important and children and dogs really notice.

A Very Low-Key Summer Checklist

What is on your summer checklist? I work full time, but we love lazy summer weekends with nothing on the schedule except to go swimming and enjoying meals together. Here are 10 low-key things we are hoping to do this summer…

Swim. Enjoy the pool. Jump in the pool and don’t care about what you look like because no one else does. Go to the beach or lake and be the first one to jump in and make fun memories together.

Try a new-to-you ice cream flavor. We recently have discovered two new ice cream places near us, and we all love going for an ice cream run in the evenings and trying new flavors!

Do Fireworks. We all recently took a short trip to Pennsylvania to get some child-friendly fireworks for the Fourth of July! We even found a place that welcomed our little Victory, too! It should be a lot of fun!

Give your child disposable camera. I remember these from my childhood. What a fun way to introduce kids to photography; and it is magical to get the film developed together to see what your child created on their own!

Play games. We like to play goldfish and memory games together, along with hide and seek, which Alex loves!

One night, throw bedtime to the wolves and let your child stay up as late as he/she can. Since summer is officially here, we have been more relaxed with bedtime. The sun, after all, is out until nearly 9:00 p.m. here! Alex loves stretching out her bedtime routine. And, I love holding her and cuddling with her, as one day she will be too big to sit in my lap. Each night we look at her baby videos, as she is in love with looking at her younger self!

Read a great book. Time always feels so fleeting, but I am going to try to read an entire book this summer. I am sure most nights, I will fall asleep while reading.

Leave your phone at home. Sometimes it is really nice to leave you phone at home so you are not tempted to check email, etc., and you can therefore be really present with your people.

Make cookies. Alex loves to bake with Doug. They recently made strawberry crepes and chocolate chip waffles together for breakfast over Father’s Day weekend. We always love making these go-to cookies together!

Stay inside and do not feel bad about it. We have been trying to have more down time on the weekends so everyone gets a chance to really rest without rushing around to one place or another.

Snapshot: Spring 2021

We welcomed this spring with wide open arms, after what felt like a really long winter this year. We are so grateful to have the COVID-19 vaccine, and we cannot wait until Alex is eligible to get hers. It has been so nice having warmer weather. This spring we celebrated Easter together and Alex loved dying Easter eggs; her and Victory each enjoyed their Easter baskets; and we spent Easter day go-carting together! We also did and continue to do a lot of swimming, which Alex loves! We celebrated Mother’s Day together, which was a really nice day! I feel incredibly grateful to be a human and dog mama! We also enjoyed strawberry picking together, which Alex really wanted to do this year, and she would like to return to pick more fruits this summer and this fall as well! Additionally, Alex is fully day and night potty trained, we are so elated! Alex moved into her toddler bed earlier this spring, and she also had her first “big girl hair trim” at the salon! Interestingly, Alex loves the cicadas! She enjoys putting them on her hand and she is not afraid of them at all, whereas Doug and I are not fans of the cicadas! It is difficult to believe she will be nearly 20 years old when they return!

Additionally, after receiving our vaccines, we all took a road trip to Lexington, Kentucky, and we survived our first long drive together! It was fun visiting Keeneland and the Kentucky Horse Park! Even Victory was welcome at the Kentucky Horse Park! The girls had a ball! And, Alex loved riding Tini, a pony, several times! Doug introduced Alex to some of his favorite restaurants via take out! As a result of our trip, Alex has fully embraced horses, as she is taking horse riding lessons and she is doing really well! Alex just continues to blossom and keep us on our toes. We think she is growing in every way, day by day! Alex especially loves looking at videos of her younger self! She asks me every night to “see the baby videos!” And, she loves “reading” to Victory in the mornings! It is so endearing.

Victory is doing well, too. She has fully embraced Alex; and she has really come out of her shell, as a result. Victory is fully ensconced into our little family and we are so, so grateful she appears to be in good health per the vet. Victory has a big birthday coming up this fall, which we will celebrate! Alex frequently tells us that, “Victory is the best puppy, ever!” And it is so true. I cannot believe how fast the time is going, the days continue to fly by way too quickly. It is all going too fast. I am grateful to be able to document this time with our little family. I just wish the time would slow down, some! We are looking forward to a fun summer! Alex cannot wait to return to the beach! A few photos from our spring together are shown below!

On Happiness and Wholeness

The other day, I read this passage online, and it has stuck with me and it has also provided some relief…

I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that—I don’t mind people being happy—but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down three things that made you happy today before you go to sleep” and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position. It’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say, “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness.” Ask yourself, “Is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is.

—Hugh MacKay, author of The Good Life